updated 01:25 pm EST, Thu January 20, 2011

Verizon may ship Thunderbolt, Xoom on February 14

Verizon may be planning to kick off Mobile World Congress by formally releasing the HTC Thunderbolt and Motorola Xoom at the same time. A tip from sources and a marketing leak point to the Thunderbolt shipping on February 14, just at the start of the Barcelona phone show, and that Verizon is sending marketing material for both Android devices to resellers at the same time. Phandroid in getting the info couldn't confirm that the Xoom would also be ready at that point, but Verizon had already confirmed a February release window.

The Thunderbolt may also be unusually equipped with a large amount of storage. Sources have said it may ship with a 32GB microSDHC card pre-installed, making it the first Android phone to come with more than 16GB already loaded. Its faster Internet access and price, said to sit at $200 on contract, could help justify the capacity.

The two were some of the most finished devices for Verizon at CES and were thought the most likely to arrive first, but their shipping dates hadn't been narrowed down until the most recent slips. The Thunderbolt is an LTE adaption of the Desire HD and has the same 4.3-inch screen, 1GHz new-generation Snapdragon and eight-megapixel camera with a front camera as its main contribution.

Motorola's Xoom is original and uses a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 along with a 1280x800, 10-inch screen, a rear five-megapixel camera and a front two-megapixel camera. It will only use 3G and Wi-Fi at first, but it will be hardware-upgraded to 4G at a later point this year.